Herman van Veen

2016 – 2018

HERMANNUS (HERMAN) JANTINUS VAN VEEN, (Utrecht, March 14, 1945) plays the violin, sings, writes, composes, directs, paints and is an activist for the Rights of the Child.

Born in Utrecht, the Netherlands, he grew up as the only boy in a working-class family and studied violin, voice and music pedagogy at the Utrecht Conservatory.

He made his theatrical debut in 1965 with the musical, clownish, solo program, Harlequin. Since then he has traveled all over the world, performing in four languages. He was the creator of Alfred Jodocus Kwak, a courageous little duck from Waterland who became world-famous thanks to a 52 episode television series.

To date he has recorded 183 CDs, 26 DVDs, some eighty-odd books, scenarios for, among others, the feature-length films, Uit Elkaar (Break-up) and Nachtvlinder (Night Butterfly) and for the music theatre productions Jukebox, De Kamerrevue (The Room Revue), Lune, The First Lady (together with Lori Spee), Chanson de Daniël (Daniëls Song), Mata Hari, Windekind (Child of the Wind), Een Dag in September (A Day in September) and Juliette.